Loving Lydia

Found my camera

Fourth of July this year was good, but strange.

We all went to Freedomfest, tons of fun--but marked by Confederate flags flying more prominantly than the American. (Does that seem wrong to anyone else, or is that "just me"?) We played games, ate snowcones, had bbq and rode rides. Hot and tired, we left around 2pm to put Lydia down for a nap and then do "daytime" fireworks. Lydia played with poppits while we did snakes and coloured smokebombs. Afterwards we had grilled shrimp, corn on the cob and dumplins with homemade strawberry lemonade and apple pie. As we neared fireworks time that's when the storms began and we ended up spending time in the hallway as four tornados formed around town. The town's firework's display was postponed until the next night but we played with sparklers and fountians until Lydia was too tired to continue.  

The ultimate sin

I have misplaced my camera. I'll be posting photos soon...well as soon as I find my camera anyway.

This has nothing to do with Loving Lydia

But it's brilliant! (I love vampires!!)

Happy 4th!!!

Here are our previous 4th's as a family!

2008

2007 

2006  

Classic moments in parenting

Yesterday at dinner Lydia jumps up and says I gotta pee! So up she goes, like a big girl all by herself--completely able to handle the task at hand on her own. Russell and I continue to eat our spaghetti. A few moments pass when suddenly from the hall comes a child running frantically with her pants around her ankles and her panties around her knees. "There's a bug in my panties!!" she shrieks. Russell (our bug champion) throws down his fork and jumps into action. The bug--apparently a fly--no longer there had made it's escape. So dinner resumed its normal schedule, with the small exception of my hysterical laughter.

More Busch Gardens

I love theme parks, so one of the big things we did this year was go to Busch Gardens in Williamsburg. I grew up on this park--having had season passes most of my formative years..so I was excited to take Liddy. I've been to a bunch of parks; Disneyworld, Universal Studios, Opryland (before it's demise), Six Flaggs, Kings Dominion and many other smaller amusement parks. But Busch is my favourite. Yeah...Disney puts on a much better show, and Universal has the universal monsters and the King Kong ride. (LOVE the King Kong ride!) But Busch is so relaxing and beautiful. If you go during the week the lines are managable and you have a great time. I always felt like with Disney it was me verses the park. You have to have a "battleplan for fun" But at Busch it's easy. And isn't that what fun should be? Pure ease.

Ohme-Ohmy

We took Lydia to Busch Gardens in Williamsburg and discovered she is a roller coaster junkie. I'm not overly fond of coasters, but I got on the kiddie coaster with her in "Elmo Land"...only to swear NEVER AGAIN. I'm a wimp, but not her, she rode six times and would have gone more if we had let her. Then she proceded to try every other thrill ride she could talk us into. Except for the Big Bad Wolf--she was afraid he might blow her house down so she was okay with skipping that ride. She was under the size limit for all the adult coasters...and let me tell you, we heard about it! But she did get on several other rides that made my knees shake. Our girl definately has that need for speed!
Ohme ohmy!

P.S. By the 5th or 6th go round on the coaster she was holding her hands over her head like a pro!

Video about Zhuang ethnic minority

Lydia is a member of this ethnic minority. If you ever find information on the Zhuang, please forward it to us.

Completely "Charmed"

On our way home from visiting my parents in Virginia we took what was suppossed to be a slightly out of the way side trip to Baltimore to see the aquarium and to go to Charm City Cakes. The 3 hour drive took us almost 7 hours due to extremely bad traffic so no aquarium. But the real goal was always to get our pictures in front of the famed bakery. I'm a huge fan of Ace of Cakes on The Food Network...so imagine my delight when we got there and they were loading a wedding cake for delivery. We asked Ben (Ben Turner one of their uber talented cake artists) if it was okay to take pictures and he said sure and chatted with me and Lydia for a short while. He even offered to be in a picture! He was a great guy who was very sweet to Lydia--who, like most four year olds--wanted to know everything. Suddenly that bumper to bumper traffic seemed like a piece of cake!

Facepaint